SLEEPING BEAUTY

Name: SLEEPING BEAUTY
Author: Alison Sage
ISBN: 978-0-8075-7351-8

adapted by Alison Sage ; illustrated by Sarah Gibb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2015

A sugary take, distinguishable only in minor ways from those illustrated by Maja Dusíková (2012), Kuniko Craft (2002), and a...

bookshelf

Borders of lacy wisteria and thorny wild roses add elegant atmosphere to this sweet version of the classic tale.

Sage and Gibbs’ rendition, based on the Grimms’ “Briar Rose,” ends with the marriage and goes for the empty calories, equally careless with details and eager to leave behind the grimmer aspects of the original. The “spindles” ordered burned in the wake of dark-skinned Malevola’s curse are spinning wheels in the pictures, as is the item on which Princess Rosebud at last (somehow) pricks her finger; when Prince Florizel arrives a century later, he wakes her (by kissing her hand). The joyous couple goes off to a happily ever after, thus avoiding the rape, secret marriage, and cannibalism featured in old versions of the story. Gibb makes effective use of silhouettes and also of a wordless spread to underscore the tale’s more melodramatic moments. Elsewhere, Rosebud and her royal parents, along with a flutter of tiny gossamer-winged fairies, float and gesture gracefully in sumptuous pink and pastel settings framed by lush (if sometimes thorny) floral garlands.

A sugary take, distinguishable only in minor ways from those illustrated by Maja Dusíková (2012), Kuniko Craft (2002), and a fairy coachful of like romantics. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-8075-7351-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Whitman

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
RAPUNZEL
retold by Alison Sage & illustrated by Sarah Gibb

bookshelf

THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES

by Paul Goble ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1978

bookshelf

There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978

ISBN: 0689845049

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bradbury

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
RED CLOUD'S WAR
by Paul Goble ; illustrated by Paul Goble ; introduction by Robert Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL OUR RELATIVES
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

- BOOK REVIEW
SONG OF CREATION
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

bookshelf

THOSE BUILDING MEN

by Angela Johnson & illustrated by Barry Moser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

bookshelf

Vague text and anemic pictures make this at best a half-hearted tribute to the construction workers of the last century or so. In her brief, poetic text Johnson writes of “those shadowy building men . . . moving the earth to connect water,” of “railroad workers . . . who were there to connect all.” She continues: “As buildings tower above us / they tell the tales / of the cities . . . They whisper down past it all and say, / ‘They built us, your fathers . . .’ ” There is little here to engage child readers, either intellectually or emotionally, and Moser’s remote, indistinct portraits of ordinary-looking men (only men) dressed in sturdy working clothes and, mostly, at rest, only intermittently capture any sense of individual or collective effort. In evident recognition of these inadequacies, a prose afterword has been added to explain what the book is about—a superfluous feature had Moser and Johnson produced work up to their usual standards. Let readers spend time more profitably with the likes of John Henry or Mike Mulligan. (Picture book. 6-8)